


Beneath You(r Desk)

by SolarMorrigan



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall - Fandom
Genre: Dubious Science, M/M, Sleep Deprivation, sorry - Freeform, this turned out a bit crackier than I meant it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 03:59:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11028177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SolarMorrigan/pseuds/SolarMorrigan
Summary: "Get under the desk, Bond."It's not what it sounds like.





	Beneath You(r Desk)

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for [this](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/807151.html?thread=102942959#t102942959) comment_fic prompt
> 
> This got very out of hand and I'm sorry about the title

“I must admit, I wasn’t expecting the day to take this turn.” Bond said after a moment.

Q rolled his eyes. “Get under the desk, Bond.”

“May I ask why?”

“You may,” Q replied primly, “But you won’t get an answer until after you get under the desk.”

Bond huffed and glanced around. Q’s office was a windowless closet of a room off the main floor of Q branch that the quartermaster tended to spend little time in. One wall was taken up by a long work table, covered in projects and incongruous piles of books, while a desk was angled in an opposing corner, taken up by two monitors and a frankly ridiculous amount of paperwork. Bond honestly couldn’t make heads or tails of what Q insisted on calling the “deliberate chaos” of the office, but he did know that it was a surveillance dark spot and that there was no one around to see him do what he was about to do- which was to sigh and get down on his knees to crawl under a desk.

It was a bit more spacious than Bond had expected it to be, but between his own bulky frame and Q’s long legs, it was still a rather snug fit. “This is cozy.” He quipped, “Now why are we here?”

“Three things,” Q held up three fingers demonstratively, “First, _I_ am here because I am testing a theory. Second, _I_ am here because I am testing some new tech. Third, _we_ are here because _you_ dropped by unplanned in the middle of my experiment and thus became part of it.”

“You’re testing new tech by hiding under a desk.” Bond deadpanned.

“It has a rather limited range.” Q admitted.

Bond scrutinized Q in the scant light that made it into the alcove that was the underside of Q’s desk. It was difficult to say without getting a proper look at him, but Bond was fairly certain the shadows under Q’s eyes were not caused by the poor lighting. “When was the last time you slept?” He asked slowly.

“Irrelevant.” Q turned away from Bond and reached up onto his desk to pull down what appeared to be a thick metal rod.

“It’s relevant if you’re about to blow us up.”

Q gave a disappointed _tsk_ and lined the rod up with the edge of the desk. “I make more than weapons and you know it. Did anyone see you come in here?”

“I doubt it. Why?”

“Good.” Q murmured absently, moving his fingers along one end of the device, apparently searching for something.

Bond held his silence for a few moments longer before losing his patience. “What _are_ you doing?”

“As I said, I am- _aha_ ,” Q made a quiet exclamation of triumph as he found what he was looking for, the length of the rod visibly splitting in half with a click, “I am testing some new tech. And a theory. Also the catch is a bit tricky to find, make a note of that, please.”

“Why would I make a note of it?” Bond stared at the back of Q’s head incredulously.

Q turned back to look at Bond, confused. He blinked at the agent as though just realizing he was there. “Because I don’t have any paper.” Q said finally, his tone indicating that it should have been obvious.

“There’s a notebook in your jacket pocket, Q.” Bond sighed.

“Hm?” Q patted down the front of his jacket, then reached in to find a small, spiral-bound notebook- the one Bond knew Q kept on his person without fail, mostly to jot down passing ideas and designs, “Ah, I’d forgotten about that, thank you.” Q passed the notebook over to Bond.

Indulgently, Bond pulled a pen from his own pocket and made a note on a relatively clean sheet of paper, “ _Catch on metal rod you hid under your desk with is tricky to find”_ , before setting it on the floor beside him. “When was the last time you slept?” He asked again.

“I don’t know why you keep asking me that, it hardly has any bearing our present situation.” Q huffed, pulling the device in half slowly, so that a thin sheet of material unrolled between them like cellophane.

“We’re hiding under a desk. That seems relevant to your present level of reasonability.” Bond pointed out.

“Not hiding. Testing an invention.” Q pressed the top half of the device to the underside of his desk and made a contented noise when it stuck, “Also proving a theory.”

“So you’ve said.”

Q hummed and went back to the bottom half of the split rod, pressing a few more buttons in quick succession. “Alright. Here we go.” Q declared, pushing a final button with a grin.

The effect was somewhat anticlimactic, in Bond’s opinion; the film stretched across the opening of the desk flickered and dimmed a bit, but little else seemed to happen. Q, however, was looking at Bond with an expectantly pleased little smile. “Alright, what am I looking at?” Bond asked after a moment.

Q huffed. “It’s a two-way projector. At least, that’s what we’ve been calling it. Bit over-simplified, but basically,” Q gestured to the film, “It’s rather like a two-way mirror, in that we can see through it from this side, but someone on the other side could not see through to us.”

“And what _is_ on the other side?” Bond prompted.

“A projection. Rather than a reflection.” Q shook his head, “It is currently presenting the image of the empty underside of my desk. The technology is rather limited at the moment, as I said. You need to have an image preloaded and there’s not exactly a quick way of doing it and the larger we make the projection area the less stable the image becomes but…”

“We would be able to see anybody who came by while all they would see was an empty space beneath a desk.” Bond finished.

“Yes, exactly.” Q nodded, smiling again, “Limited right now, but imagine the potential applications.”

Bond cocked an eyebrow. “What exactly is its _current_ application?”

“Ah,” Q held up a finger, “Someone has been stealing my tea.”

Bond’s day was only growing stranger. “Excuse me?”

“My good tea, my _favorite_ tea, for when I’m really stressed or tired, I keep it in my desk. And _someone_ has been stealing it.” Q insisted.

“So… you’re using cutting edge technology to hide under your desk and catch whichever of your underlings is stealing your tea?” Bond ventured.

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Q snipped, “I am _testing_ cutting edge technology and _multitasking_ by catching a tea thief.”

“You do realize,” Bond said after a moment, “That I’m going to bring this incident up the next time you try to yell at me for misappropriating tech, don’t you?”

“Worth it.” Q declared, shuffling the arrangement of his legs about slightly so that his calves were resting against Bond’s thighs and, nice though the contact was, it served as a reminder of the limited space they were in.

Bond let out a short huff of a sigh. “Exactly how long do you expect to be waiting under here?”

“Oh, not long.” Q pulled up the cuff of his shirt to glance at his watch, “In fact…”

Just on cue, the sound of Q’s office door opening and shutting again met their ears, and Q gave Bond an unnecessary ‘shush’ gesture as they both went still. The intruder was sure-footed, moving unerringly to Q’s desk and pausing only a moment before pulling open the top, left-hand drawer- exactly where Q stashed his tea.

“Aha!” Q shouted, very nearly startling even Bond, “I _knew_ it!”

“ _Holy shit!_ ” The startled intruder dropped the tin on the floor with a resounding clang and backed up the scant few paces it took to plaster themselves against the wall.

Q grabbed the bottom half of the projector and pushed it up to reconnect it with its other half, pulling the entire thing off the underside of his desk and then clambering to his feet. “Simmons,” Q tutted, “I should’ve known.”

“ _Q?_ ” Simmons looked from his quartermaster with a muted sort of panic that morphed into actual fear as Bond unfolded himself from beneath the desk with more grace than Q had managed, “And… 007.”

“Honestly, Simmons,” Q chided, reaching down to rescue the tin of tea from the floor, apparently ignorant to the man’s borderline terror, “If you wanted some, you could have just _asked_.”

Simmons looked from Bond to Q, his expression caught somewhere between alarm and confusion as he watched his boss return the tea to its rightful drawer. “Why- what… Why were you hiding under your _desk?_ ” Simmons spluttered, a hand still clutched over his chest in shock.

“S _omeone_ has been stealing my tea.” Q gave Simmons a look that was far more scathing than it should have been coming from someone who, upon exposure to the light, looked as though they’d had perhaps three hours of sleep in as many days.

The tech quailed a bit under the look, becoming increasingly nervous as both Q and Bond observed him silently until he spotted the device in Q’s hand. “Oh,” He lit up with interest, “Is that the two-way projector?”

“Yes, I thought a sort of field test was in order.” Q grinned, “How did it look from the outside?”

“Brilliant! I couldn’t see you at all, scared the hell out of me when I heard you shout.” Simmons assured Q, “How’d it work from the other side?”

“The catch is a bit tricky, but the view was quite clear. I recognized your trainers almost immediately. As you came in to steal my tea.” Q’s eyes narrowed again.

“Right…” Simmons’ grin faded, “I don’t suppose you’d accept a heartfelt apology?”

“I wouldn’t _mind_ an apology, but no, not really.” Q replied absently, patting down his pockets, “And where the fuck has my notepad got to?”

Bond bit the inside of his cheek to stave off the long-suffering sigh that threatened to escape before bending down and snatching the forgotten notebook out from under Q’s desk. He thrust it into Q’s line of sight and the man accepted it graciously. “Ah, right. Here we are.” Q grabbed a pen from his desk and began a note on a clean sheet of paper.

The sheet was ripped from the notepad and, much to Bond’s amusement, secured to the front of Simmons’ shirt with a safety pin Q had produced from his pocket. Simmons glanced down to read what had been scrawled across the paper in Q’s spidery handwriting and groaned.

“ _I have stolen the Quartermaster’s tea on no less than five occasions and have been sent to run diagnostics on every single laptop, tablet, and smartphone currently in our inventory._ ”

“Q, that’ll take me _ages_.” Simmons protested.

“That’s rather the idea of a punishment, isn’t it? To have you do something unpleasant? Besides, _someone_ needs to run diagnostics.” Q waved his hand, “Off you go, then. Show your note to the inventory tech and they’ll get you all set up.”

Heaving a resigned sigh, Simmons headed for the door. “And I can expect you’ll be leaving my personal items alone from now on, yes?” Q called after him.

“Yes, Quartermaster.” Simmons called back, sounding properly repentant.

The door swung shut behind Simmons and Q clapped his hands together. “Well. That was an interesting diversion.”

“It was certainly something.” Bond nodded, “Tell me, did it ever occur to you to just put a camera in your office?”

Q blinked. “Well. No. Not really.” He shrugged, “This was far more interesting.”

Bond shook his head. “Q, I’m serious, when was the last time you _slept?_ ”

“I’ve been catching naps here and there over the past few days, I’m fine.” Q dismissed Bond’s concern, “I don’t really need sleep right now. And I have several projects that need overseeing, so…”

“If those projects were really so important, you wouldn’t have had the time to spend God knows how long setting up a sting operation under your desk.” Bond reached over and grabbed Q by the wrist before the younger man could reach for his keyboard, “It’s time to go home and get some real sleep.”

Lips pursed, Q glanced around the room as if seeking an out. “I _can’t_ really sleep right now. So it’s just better if I keep working.” He admitted quietly, the jubilance from catching Simmons in the act of stealing his tea already drained from him.

“Then how about,” Bond suggested, his voice also going soft as he used the grip he already had on Q to pull the man closer to him, “We _both_ go to bed, and lie there and relax? You don’t have to sleep, you just have to _rest_.”

“You hate lying still.” Q accused, even as he allowed Bond to pull him against his chest, “So do I, for that matter.”

“Yes, but I rather thought if we had the added benefit of being pressed together under a warm blanket, neither of us would mind much.” Bond murmured into Q’s ear.

Bond could feel the amused huff of Q’s breath against his neck. “Soppy, 007. Very soppy.” Q muttered, though he didn’t protest when Bond pulled away to pick up Q’s messenger bag and laptop.

“Whatever it takes, Q.” Bond replied lightly, “Six can manage without us for the rest of the day. Let’s go to bed.”

**Author's Note:**

> Anybody else headcanon Q as bipolar? Because projection is a thing, yeah, but c'mon... bipolar Q, guys


End file.
